Still Mine: Mary Wine

Jolene Benate has spent six years keeping a vow to herself to never again be that weak woman weeping at her young husband’s graveside. Now she’s a deputy marshal on the elite warrant squad, as physically and mentally tough as they come. But moving on isn’t as easy as it looks.

Especially when the husband she thought was dead suddenly reappears. And, even in the face of his betrayal, she still wants him.

Paul Benate’s gifted mind was groomed from a young age to serve the military and its top-secret projects. His one youthful act of rebellion was to marry Jolene, only to discover a terrorist could use her to force him to give up his classified secrets. For her own safety, he had to let her go.

But the safety he thought was assured by his “death” was only an illusion. Secrets have a way of surfacing, and once again Jolene is the perfect target. There’s only one thing left to do…reclaim the woman that he has always loved.

Even if she’s mad as hell at him.

Review: Reading the blurb for this book had me thinking that this was going to potentially be a potent book emotionally. Yeah, didn’t happen.

For the first 20% of the book, pretty much the only thing that happens is that the main female character, Jo (or is it Jonnie or is it Jolene, because that is so not clear as it switched on almost every reference so I wasn’t always sure if we were talking about the same person every time) still thinks about her dead husband all the time. Not even so much how much she loved him, but how great the sex was with him and that she can’t, even six years later think of anything else. Pretty much non-stop. In her sleep, because she dreams about it. When she is talking to a co-worker, because obviously, there is no way he could be as good as the dead husband was. Even when she is in a safe house after being shot and having no clue why, the only thing she is thinking about is that awesome sex.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe that people grieve differently, in different ways, process loss differently and there is no set time frame in which that happens, but this came across so incredibly off for me. I really wasn’t liking Jo so much because of it.

When they finally throw the not really dead husband in front of her, he comes across so incredibly cold and cutting that I instantly disliked him. Oh, and he so wasn’t any better with regards to the sex thoughts thing either. Because, seriously, there is nothing at all wrong with admitting that he married her because he wanted to get laid. He was also stalker creepy having watched her the entire time he was supposed to be dead. Even had pictures of her sleeping? Yeah, that’s not weird at all.

Needless to say, after forcing my way through about a third of the book, I couldn’t stomach any more and put it down. I just couldn’t do it. Sorry.